


Subsequently

by anonymous_sibyl



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Character of Color, Dark, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-06-30
Updated: 2003-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-03 23:10:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymous_sibyl/pseuds/anonymous_sibyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of the "Subsequently" arc, a series of vignettes about the Sunnydale survivors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The View From the Back of the Bus

**Author's Note:**

> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works. 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew Wells, five minutes after "Chosen"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works. 

Andrew always wanted to sit at the back of the bus. That's where all the cool kids sat, laughing and joking, and throwing spitballs at him where he crouched with the other losers trying to make himself as small as possible. Safe near the driver, just like his mother always told him.

He's back there alone now, no cool kids to joke with, nobody to talk to at all. Everyone else is clustered at the front of the bus, the wounded slumped in their seats and the rest staring blindly at the road ahead.

Not Andrew, though, he's looking behind. He sees dust swirling around the crater and he imagines he can see the sun glinting off the fallen Welcome to Sunnydale sign, but that's probably just glass or a car or something. Maybe it's pieces of Buffy's house or the comic shop or Warren's van. Little broken pieces of everything he's leaving behind.

He presses his hand against the window and it's warm against his palm. He wishes he could push his hand right through it and touch some part of Sunnydale just one last time. He can see himself reflected in the window, eyes big and scared, mouth drawn in a straight line. He looks sad and lonely and he wishes he had someone to sit next to him on the bus ride because that might make him feel better. It might make him feel less guilty about being alive if just one person sat near him and told him they'd miss him if he were gone.

"Aw, Sparky, don't feel bad. I'd miss you if you were gone."

"Wa-Warren?" he whispers, meeting his eyes in the window. "You're dead. And you're not Warren."

"I'm not any more dead than you are Andrew," Warren says and drapes his arm over the back of the seat so close that Andrew could lean back and touch it, if it were really there to touch. "And I'm not guilty to be alive. You shouldn't be either. Remember, grasshopper, that which does not kill us..."

"Makes us stronger," Andrew finishes and smiles. Beside him, the First Evil smiles back.


	2. Miss Runner Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faith, one hour after "Chosen"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the "Subsequently" arc, a series of vignettes about the Sunnydale survivors.
> 
> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works. 

They're an hour out of Sunnydale-that-was when it hits her.

It's an earth shattering type of idea so she lights up a smoke to help her think about it. Robin cranes his neck and gives her that crooked grin of his that makes her all kinds of tingly, Drill Instructor Kennedy clears her throat like she's thinking about complaining until Faith gives her the evil eye, and the rest of the Wanna-Be-Kinda-Ares murmur amongst themselves.

It's the Wanna-Slays that have her thinking this hard so they'll just have to put up with her secondhand smoke. It's not like Slayers live long enough for cancer to matter anyway. Or, will they?

See, that's the thing. The Slayer, The Chosen One, the one and only girl, she generally doesn't live very long at all. So, Buffy? Never thinking she was long for the world. Then, her, Miss Runner Up of the Slayerfest Pageant, the spare to the golden heir, well, she certainly didn't think her lifespan was all that long. Especially not after she went all evil and then tried for redemption.

But, now? Now she's not the second slayer, the bad slayer, the lesser slayer, or anything like that. She's just one of many, a soldier in this woman's army, and her lifeline suddenly got a lot longer.

Faith tosses her unfinished cigarette out the window and watches it spiral away in the darkness. She crumples the pack in her fist and pitches it out of the bus, too. Hey, littering? She finally might live long enough to care.

"Wicked."


	3. You Can't Go Back to Constantinople

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Willow Rosenberg, three months after "Chosen"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the "Subsequently" arc, a series of vignettes about the Sunnydale survivors.
> 
> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works. 

_"I feel like some part of me will always be waiting for you. Like if I'm old and blue-haired, and I turn the corner in Istanbul and there you are, I won't be surprised. Because... you're with me, you know?"  
\--Willow, New Moon Rising_

"Not so much with the blue as the white."

For one tiny second she freezes. Then she throws herself into his arms, which are, no surprise, wide open and waiting for her. "Oz!"

"Willow." He nuzzles his face into her neck and breathes in that Willow smell of cookies and strawberries that he can remember so well. It's overlaid with something different, older, but benign, so he's not worried.

They hug for so long that little old ladies on the street start to mutter. She could have hugged for longer, would have made them a world where they could hug forever, but Oz, used to making his way in strange countries, pulls away until just his fingertips are brushing hers.

"So... white?" he asks, eyes on the one strand of hair that's managed to work its way loose from the tidy bun on the back of her head and slide out from underneath her scarf to dangle on her cheek. Willow, too, has become used to different countries with different ways.

"White," she says, nervously tucking the hair back underneath her scarf. "It's a magic thing."

"Huh." He tilts his head and his lips part slightly. Willow's reminded of Miss Kitty Fantastico searching for a scent and she realizes Oz is doing the same. "Huh," he says again.

"Yeah," Willow says, brushing her fingers across his. "It's of the good."

"I'm happy for you."

"Thanks."

The silence they lapse into isn't awkward. Willow and Oz have never needed words and they don't need them now. She's happy, she realizes, for the first time in years.

Tears rush to her eyes and Willow raises her hands to wipe them away. She's crying quietly, so as to not wake Kennedy and she rolls on her side, hugs her pillows tightly to her and wishes it had been something more than a dream. Staring into the dark, Willow pushes her red hair out of her face and tries to go back to sleep, back to Istanbul.


	4. Little Bit Prettier Than Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin Wood, six months after "Chosen"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the "Subsequently" arc, a series of vignettes about the Sunnydale survivors.
> 
> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works. 

The spacious apartment always seemed crowded when they were home together, as if Faith were stretching her wings, searching for space he couldn't give her. Robin felt guilty about that, so he stopped asking her about her night, listened and smiled when she told him about the vamps she'd slain and all the demon-ass she'd kicked, and patched up her wounds without comment.

Faith made it all so easy. She never asked him about his work, never made assumptions about things they might do together, didn't even have her voice on their answering machine. And, of course, the girl got off on slaying and he was happy to be the tension reliever in her bed every night, as long as he thought he was something more every day. Hell, she wasn't kidding about the mad skills.

Things were going pretty well. His new job paid for anything they needed, and their apartment was a touchstone for all the slayers and Scoobies who had scattered far and wide. Faith seemed happy and he knew he was.

After his mother died, Robin always knew his life was meant to contain a slayer, so when he'd first met Buffy, knowing there was only one girl in each generation, he'd assumed she was the one. Then he met Faith and that all changed.

It took six months to the day after Sunnydale collapsed for him to surprise Faith, as he'd promised.

It took six seconds after he proposed for Faith to shake her head no.

She stopped at the door, bag in hand, and looked back at him, velvet box cradled in his hands and his heart on the floor.

"Guess you surprised me after all," she said, swiping the back of her hand over her eyes and forcing a smile. She took two steps out the door, then turned back and winked at him. "But no way are you prettier than me."

"Little bit," he said.

He was still smiling when the door closed behind her.


	5. Three Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kennedy, one year after "Chosen"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the "Subsequently" arc, a series of vignettes about the Sunnydale survivors.
> 
> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works. 

Dear Willow,

I was wrong, you know. Magic isn't like a fairytale and you're not a princess who needs rescuing. The trouble is, I need to be a white knight charging to the rescue on a brave horse.

I can see you right now, your nose crinkled up, and I know you're picturing Arwen on her horse the way it was in the movie, but that's you, Willow. You're the pretty girl with the magic, not me. I'm more like Eowyn, or, if you really want to know, I think I'm more like Boromir, always wanting something that's just out of my reach.

Are you thinking Xander's your Frodo, Will? Because he is, and Andrew's Merry or Pippin, whichever one Anya wasn't, and Mr. Giles is definitely Gandalf the Grey. You can figure out the rest, because I've got to be going. Boromir's dead, remember, and I don't belong here with you and the rest of your fellowship.

The rent for next month is paid and if you're reading this then you found the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I left for you. You've been in a trance for a week now, so I figure you'll be pretty damn hungry by the time you get around to coming back to the world.

If you're still reading this, you should probably look in the mirror before you go out to tell your friends about whatever great magical thing you've discovered this time because your hair turned white two days ago. I don't even think you're completely Willow anymore.

You told me that when Oz left all you wanted to do was curl up and die. When Tara was killed you tried to destroy the whole world. Well, I'm leaving now, Will, and I've called your name for three days but you never even blinked.

I'll miss you, my Willow, but I doubt you'll even remember my name.

Love, Kennedy


	6. Dining Out On It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rona, two years after "Chosen"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the "Subsequently" arc, a series of vignettes about the Sunnydale survivors. Character death.
> 
> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works. 

It wasn't until a couple of years after "The Great Sunnydale Earthquake of '03" that she found out the residents of Sunnydale always knew what was going on. Oh, maybe they didn't know the specifics, the fine details of which vampire or what demon was making with the nasty that Spring, but they knew all right. They knew something bad was coming and they left.

She wishes she could have left with them. Just found herself a nice family with a roomy station wagon and piled on in, just her and her cd player, no swords or stakes or any of the things she'd packed for that final battle.

She was mad the first time some guy casually mentioned vamps to her, as if he knew something about the subject, and told her to her face that she was a fool not to leave Sunnydale as quickly as he had. She punched him right in the mouth, sent him flying across the restaurant to land in some old white lady's soup.

The second time it happened she was too damn hungry to be mad. She told her story from appetizers through dessert and she made it a good one. She was full that night when she went to sleep, for the first time in ages.

The next day, the ratty old overalls were gone, along with the long braids, and a young woman stared back at her in the mirror of the swanky department store, courtesy of yet another Sunnydale refugee. Rona the Sunnydale Outcast had become Rona the Vampire Slayer and she could live on that forever. The fact that she hadn't slain vamp one since that last fight where she nearly died didn't effect her idea in the slightest.

She hasn't been mad about someone getting the hell out of town before everything went bad in a long time. Rona likes her rent paid and her clothes clean and her meals hot and fresh far too much for that. There's just something about the woman she's dining with tonight that's making her jittery and she wants to get the hell out of there as fast as she can.

When the check comes the woman drops careless handfuls of money on the table until she's more than paid in full. Rona follows her out of the restaurant hoping to catch a cab but instead she finds herself walking slowly home with the woman silent at her side.

"Clever little girl," the woman says, breaking the silence with that strange accent of hers. "Dining out on the slayers. I like to do that, too."

She claps her hands together and Rona is mesmerized by her fingernails, white with blood red tips. The fingers sway back and forth, pointing first at Rona, then at the woman.

"Look into my eyes," she says and Rona does only to find the very thing she's been running away from all these years staring back at her. She's trying to decide if she's more afraid of the vampire in front of her or of the slayerness she's used wrongly for so long when the Drusilla's fangs pierce her neck and after that she just doesn't care anymore.


	7. Some Things Can't Be Fixed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander Harris, three years after "Chosen"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the "Subsequently" arc, a series of vignettes about the Sunnydale survivors.
> 
> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works. 

She's twining a lock of her newly white hair around her index finger when she tells him.

He almost doesn't hear her because he's trying to remember what day it was when she went to sleep with red hair and woke up with white. He can't figure that out, though, so he focuses on her mouth stretched in that wide grin he hasn't seen in forever, and starts to make sense of her words.

"My eye? What about my eye?" He puts his hand over his right eye and feels the lashes brushing over his palm. "Only got the one, Will. Need it for stuff."

"Xander!" Willow wraps her fingers around his wrist and pulls his hand to her lap. "Your other eye. The one that's not. I can fix it."

"You can't fix it, Will," he says. 'It's gone. There's nothing to fix."

"No silly. I can bring it back." She lifts that strand of white hair up between them so they can both see it. "All powerful and nifty now, remember?"

He doesn't even need to think about this. "Then bring her back. Fix her."

Her fingers tighten around his hand and he knows what she's trying to say. It's something about 'natural death' and maybe she'll even say 'Tara' so he'll know she's telling the truth. He doesn't want her to have to say it so he just shakes his head and smiles a little, hoping she'll hear the unsaid words telling her that without Anya nothing looks the same anyway so one eye, more or less, doesn't matter.

Some things can't be fixed. He's a carpenter, he knows.


	8. Today Only

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violet, ten years after "Chosen"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the "Subsequently" arc, a series of vignettes about the Sunnydale survivors.
> 
> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works. 

A petite redhead took her place at the podium. The audience in front of her, made up mostly of women, came to attention when she arrived and they watched in silence as she straightened the line of her mocha-colored designer suit.

Before she began to speak she reverently touched her fingers to the gold pendant in the shape of a long-handled scythe, which hung around her neck and grazed her silk blouse. Someone in the audience quietly pointed out the similarity between her necklace and the line-drawing that appeared on all her products and literature.

"Good afternoon, ladies," she said, when the noise died down. "My name is Violet, the Vampire Slayer."

Some of the audience clapped, led by a very blonde woman wearing a tight sweater who was seated in the second row but the majority tittered nervously. Violet smiled at them and lightly tapped her pink lacquered fingers on the podium, which was bare of speaking notes. Violet's particular brand of motivational speaking was in high demand and she'd long since committed this speech to memory.

"Today, ladies, I want to talk to you about power. Who has it and who doesn't."

Violet strode from side to side on the stage, high-heeled shoes clicking on the wooden surface, and kept a smile on her face while she delivered her lecture about "metaphorical vampires" and other "demons of the mind" to her rapt audience.

"When you let a vampire control you," she said. "You become a vampire. Do you want that?"

"No!" the blonde woman shouted out then clapped her hand over her mouth in embarrassment. "Oops. My bad."

"It's quite alright," Violet answered. "I want you to be excited about this. You should want to be excited about this." She looked from woman to woman in the audience, meeting their eyes. "Are you excited?"

"Yes!" The blonde shouted, and grinned in pleasure when other members of the audience followed suit. "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

"Well let's keep that excitement going!" Violet reached behind the podium and raised a thin hardbound book in her hand. "Today only, for thirty-nine ninety-five, you can get a copy of my new book 'We are All Chosen: Embracing your Inner Slayer Power'."

"Wow!"

"Wow indeed," Violet said to the blonde. "But that's not all! At a special price for today's seminar attendees, you can purchase a gold-plated replica of our symbol, the scythe, for an additional nineteen ninety-five!"

The books sold out in half an hour and the pendants were gone ten minutes later. Violet spent an additional twenty minutes signing autographs for her adoring public. Soon, there was no one left but the blonde who had been so excited about the seminar. She hopped up onto the table, crossed her legs at the knee, and began to file her nails.

"Violet, we are, like, going to be so rich."

"That we are, Harmony. That we are."


	9. Summers Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dawn Summers, fifteen years after "Chosen"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the "Subsequently" arc, a series of vignettes about the Sunnydale survivors. Dark themes.
> 
> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works. 

See, the thing is, the monks made her out of Buffy.

The spell for that is pretty simple. Dawn found it within a week of looking, would have found it sooner if Willow hadn't sucked all the magic out of Giles' "special" magic books and if the Watcher's Library hadn't gone boom. The spells to create the false memories of her and implant them in everyone who would know her, those were the hard ones, the ones the monks gave their lives for.

Too bad they were failing.

Oh, everyone still knows who she is, Dawn Summers, the Key, Buffy's little sister, but they can't remember anything before the day the monks dropped her in Sunnydale and she can't either. She could have adjusted to that, after all, fifteen years of fighting the Big Bad side by side with a person creates a lot of memories.

The problem is, both spells are failing. Dawn is starting to fade away.

At first, it was temporary. She'd watch her fingers turn to green mist, then turn back into solid Dawn Summers fingers. It was kind of funny, or at least she thought so at the time.

Now, it's not so funny. Dawn's going to die, turn back into a green glowy key and drift away on the wind and pretty soon nobody will even remember her name.

She's searched and searched, learned to read Sumerian and two or three obscure demon languages, and she's only ever found the one spell to make a mystical object into a human.

"It's always blood," she whispers as she makes shallow cuts on her drugged sister's body. "Summers blood."


	10. Ripper, Ethan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rupert Giles, twenty years after "Chosen"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the "Subsequently" arc, a series of vignettes about the Sunnydale survivors. Dark themes. Character death.
> 
> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works. 

He was still a handsome man, white hair cut short, and glorious blazing eyes wastefully hidden behind wire-rimmed glasses. Like most men of his advanced age, he wore a loose knit cardigan over a neatly ironed shirt and pants. A cup of tea sat cooling on the table at his left and a pile of scrapbooks blocked the wheel of his chair on his right.

He had been beautiful in his youth, and more handsome than now in his late middle-age when his beauty had been finally transformed by his character. "When Chaos and his lofty principles washed away all the innocence he had left to him."

"Pardon me, sir?"

He was making the nurse nervous. She was young and the color of cream and roses, purity leaking from every pore. Just the type Rupert had always pretended to desire, and just the type he without fail threw over for many a dark anarchic beauty. Ethan had been a dark anarchic beauty in his youth, he would know.

He'd always preferred corrupting the innocents himself, which explained his decades long relationship with Rupert. They were like magnets, he'd always thought. Attract, repel. Light, dark. Order, chaos.

Ripper, Ethan.

Age had more than softened Rupert Giles but it had done nothing to lessen Ethan Rayne. He was all angles now, more than ever, and the embers still smoldered within him. That's what brought him here, to this sanitarium, the final resting place of a once great man.

"More like a fucking tomb."

"Sir? It's very late, sir. Past visiting hours." The nurse was edging herself between him and the doorway to Rupert's room. A brave little thing, she was, and foolish. Another day, another hour, and she could have served him well. Tonight, however, he had all he needed in that room, locked in the body of his old friend and enemy.

"The fault of an old man, my dear," he said, turning on the charm--and the charms--that had served him so well throughout his life. "You can return to your celebrations and I'll keep old Rupert company on this holiday."

A flush stained her pretty cheeks and Ethan's eyes followed it all the way down to her breasts. Oh, how the body betrays. It seems Nurse Virtuous wouldn't be remaining so for very long. "Thank you, sir," she said as she walked away. "Oh, and Happy New Year!"

And a happy new year it would be. Happy, sad. Life, death. Ripper, Ethan.

He sucked in his breath and strode into the falsely cheerful room. "Hello, Ripper."

"Oh, well, yes, hello." Rupert closed the scrapbook on his lap and folded his hands on the cover. "Have you brought dinner? My tea is very cold."

"It's nearly midnight. I thought we'd celebrate the new year together."

Rupert took his glasses off and rubbed them on his sweater. "I see," he said, placing them on the bridge of his nose and pushing them into place. "I should know you, yes?" He sighed heavily. "I'm afraid you're not in my scrapbooks, or I've forgotten again."

"But I haven't forgotten you, Ripper."

"Oh. Well that's good, then." He gently placed the scrapbook on top of the others. "So it's the new year, is it? I'm terribly afraid I've forgotten that, too, if they told me."

"Dear old Ripper." Ethan placed his worn tanned hands on Rupert's cheeks. "You've forgotten more than they'll ever know and now they've left you here to die, those beloved children of yours."

"I have...," The light in Rupert's eyes gleamed, then faded. "I suppose it doesn't matter if you tell me. I won't remember by tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," said Ethan. "Tomorrow's almost on us, Ripper. And it's going to be a very good day."

Ethan loosened the brakes on the wheelchair and rolled Rupert to the window overlooking the gardens. The moon was high and full and the stars were luminous. The windows didn't open and you had to squint and peer between the iron bars, but the night in all her wild glory was there to see.

The grandfather clock began to chime.

Ethan placed his hand under Ripper's chin and drew his head back until he was looking down into Ripper's eyes. There was no confusion this time, only relief. He placed a kiss on Ripper's brow then drew the edge of his blade across his throat.

"Happy New Year, my dear Ripper," he said, as he felt the air around them both begin to shimmer. "Happy New Year."


End file.
